Thea Anamara Perkins is a finalist in the 2024 Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW with her work Atherreyurre.
This is Atherreyurre, Mparntwe or the Telegraph Station in Alice Springs, Northern Territory. It is an important site of significance to Thea Perkins, a four-time Archibald Prize and two-time Wynne Prize finalist. This is where her grandfather Charles Perkins was born and where he rests, and where her great-grandmother Hetty Perkins worked as a stockwoman.
The seductive beauty of Perkins’s work with its atmospheric evocations of burnished light draws viewers into her tender trap to expose the looming threats of climate inaction. ‘Beauty can be a vehicle to convey hard truths,’ she says. ‘I chose to paint light as time is running out. I’m communicating the essence of place that I hold dear to prompt others to think of what we value.’ Thus, this painting which echoes the energetic rhythms of landscape becomes a portrait of the people connected to it. As Perkins explains, ‘Country is family.’
